Showing posts with label damien hurst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label damien hurst. Show all posts

Monday, August 9, 2010

Dead or Alive: MAD Museum Exhibit in NYC

Is there beauty in death? At the Museum of Arts and Design, thirty artists attempt to prove this true. Through sculptures, installations, the works in this exhibit are made from items once living, now dead.

Some of have re-purposed bones into new objects. Some have made use of the decorative patterns and silhouettes of insects into beautiful decor motifs. Usually, an exhibit with such a theme provokes artists who create for shock value, or are politically abstract. Instead, the actual craft and design of these pieces are so well thought out, many could even be functional.

Feathers have been a prominent embellishment in fashion in current seasons, and fits perfectly into this exhibit. The iridescent wings of butterflies take on the silky sheen of many taffeta ballgown, its mural giving elegance to a room.

A motorcycle of engineered bones has the edge and style that would make the American Chopper Boys Drool. The delicate manipulations of beetles in a Victorian home setting might convince you it was an aristocratic estate piece.



The exhibit runs until October 24, 2010.
Photos by Stanzie Tooth

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Macabre Travel: C'est La Vie Vanities in Paris


I am currently packing for my trip to Paris at the end of the week. I am eagerly looking forward to the ''That's Life! Vanities: From Caravaggio to Damien Hirst'' exhibit at Paris' Musee Maillol
until June 28th.

The exhibit is a collection of work from contemporary and classical artists that examines the relationship of life, death and vanity. Modern artist Damien Hirst's crystal studded skull was a flashy controversial piece when it debuted, but suits the theme perfectly as a representative of today's interpretation of the theme. Contemporary artists seem to view death with a rebellious view. Caravaggio's haunting monk, or Luigi Miradori's Sleeping Cupid showed the macabre respect of the elders in accepting detch.

There is pop art from Keith Haring, surrealism, and historical pieces dating back to the mosaics of Pompeii. If anything is to be learned from such work, it is that life is short, enjoy it any way you can...